A conventional arrangement in, for example, a domestic residence, involves stand-alone safety alarms. When activated, consequent to the relevant catalyst or alarm test procedure, an audible and/or visual alarm functions; this is known as an alarm event. An alarm event alerts the inhabitants or nearby individuals to take action. It is also known to have alarms, in particular smoke alarms, connected to the nearest fire station via the telephone network. In this case, activation of the smoke alarm at the residence, school, office or factory will cause a specific associated alert function to be triggered at the fire station.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,988,232 B1 discloses a method of determining an amount of time during which a hazardous condition is present, and generating an output in response to whether or not the amount of time has reached at least a threshold duration.
The time and date of an alarm event and the location and type of alarm that was activated, are data that is unique to each alarm event. Such information has considerable value which has not been recognised or utilised in conventional alarm systems.
It is an aim of the present invention to provide a safety alarm monitoring system which utilises historical alarm event information to determine a risk factor for a particular location and to communicate this risk factor to a third party.